Perforations in the walls of internal organs and vessels may be naturally occurring, or formed intentionally or unintentionally. In order to permanently close these perforations and allow the tissue to properly heal, numerous medical devices and methods have been developed employing sutures, adhesives, clips, and the like. One class of such devices is commonly referred to as suture staples or visceral staples. In certain applications, the staples themselves hold the edges of a perforation together, and in others they are used with sutures to draw the perforation closed. Visceral staples of the latter type have been successfully used in closing perforations, but are not without their drawbacks.
For example, when a series of staples are placed around a perforation, all of the individual sutures connected to the staples must be collected and connected together. It can often be difficult to properly tension each of the individual sutures to ensure proper approximation of the tissue around the perforation and complete closure thereof. This is especially critical within the gastrointestinal tract, where the travel of bacteria-laden fluids outside of the tract may cause unwanted and sometimes deadly infection.